The present invention relates to an AC voltage amplifier particularly a gain-controlled broadband amplifier stage comprising a field effect transistor as described in German Patent Application 38 14 041 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,785 which issued on July 24th, 1990.
The above application describes a broadband amplifier stage whose amplifying element is a first field-effect transistor. The drain terminal of the field-effect transistor is connected through a resistor to the source terminal of a second field-effect transistor, henceforth called "control transistor", which controls the drain current of the first field-effect transistor. The source terminal of the control transistor is grounded through a capacitor to provide a path for RF currents. Since the transconductance of a field-effect transistor is proportional to the root of the drain current, the gain of the broadband amplifier stage can be controlled by controlling the drain current. The gate bias of the field-effect transistor is derived from a voltage divider connected at one end to the drain terminal of the field-effect transistor and at the other end to a negative voltage source. From the tap of the voltage divider, the gate potential is applied through a coupling resistor to the gate of the first field-effect transistor. The broadband amplifier stage works satisfactorily only when the first field-effect transistor is operated in the pinch-off region of its family of output characteristics. With a full variation of the gain in a ratio of about 1 : 4, operation in the pinch-off region is possible only if the supply voltage has a sufficient magnitude, about 12 volts. For commonly used supply voltages, such as .+-.5 volts, the gain of the field-effect transistor is not sufficient to ensure operation in the pinch-off region, i.e., at a fixed drain-source voltage, at small currents.